Blood on my Hands
by sxblx
Summary: This is not a test. This is your emergency broadcast system. At the sound of the siren all crime - including murder - will be legal for twelve hours. All emergency services will be suspended for twelve hours. Weapons of class four and lower are permitted. Government officials ranking ten have been granted with immunity to all Purging activates. We thank you for your participation.
1. Think About All the Good The Purge Does

Every time I look at him these days I see it. I see the intense blood lust lingering somewhere in his eyes and I swear everyone else can see it too. It's lit up like a Broadway sign. So prominent. So there. I swear to God that they can see it in my thin smile, or the way I grip onto his arm a little too desperately when he makes a joke about something that I wasn't really bothering to listen to but somehow knew the meaning behind anyway. I still refer to them as inside jokes, but it still stings.

I don't know how we got to this point, honestly. The awkward silences at breakfast when I was stirring my hundredth spoonful of sugar into my coffee, or even just the bitter tracking of the stupid relationship at three in the morning while he's sleeping his troubles away like nothing's wrong. Nothing at all. Like the stupid fucking way he does - completely oblivious to the rapidly growing enemies he makes.

See, the kicker here is that in the beginning _he_ was the novelty. Oh yeah, I met the weirdest boy today. All buff shoulders and pointy elbows and weird nicknacks and hobbies. I took him out for tea and he told me, "Just so you know I really only date girls who like to Purge." And that's really when I should've backed out, but then he took me back to his apartment and showed me his collection of swords and weird little things he had collected throughout his life. And then he took me to his computer and showed me some of the most beautiful pictures I had ever seen. After that he took the most beautiful picture of me I had ever seen, and I tackled him onto his bed with about a million pillows on it and after that I don't remember. But he isn't necessarily relationship material, and I can't have that. Oh no. I can't fucking have that.

I've known a lot of strange people in my life. Some even so strange I prefer not to talk about them. But I don't think I've ever know a man stranger than him. His strangeness runs bone deep. But there's sometimes when I catch him standing in the dust speckled sunlight, wracking with sobs over some old photograph that he refuses to get rid of and in those moments I'm afraid I'm in love. But I know I can't be.

I've spent a long time trying to get that feeling back, but the timer is about to hit zero.

You see, in two hours the annual Purge begins.

And I'm rather tired of him.


	2. Just Like the Snap of a Finger

I don't know how I got here.

Sadness.

Regret.

Sorrow.

Killing... people. People. I've killed people. Lots of people. And all for some stupid thing put in place to decrease crime. It's bullshit, really. Complete and utter bullshit. The crimes people commit on this day are more violent than crime that would happen on regular days. Crime that happens today takes more lives away than we need to take away. Crime that happens today took away my daughter... just like that. Like the snap of a finger. And then she was gone.

She was so sweet. So innocent. She was taking about a "billion" courses in University because she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life. She had a boyfriend - they were engaged. They were going to get married on October the fourth the year after The Purge she was murdered in. She used to tell me she was "going to not make the family ashamed like her brother," and that she'd "always remember what good The Purge did even though she's be living somewhere exquisite like Paris."

Then once she was driving home the day of The Purge when her car failed somehow and she was stranded in downtown. She tried to make it home. She really did. But around 4:00am she called me crying and told me everything. Then I heard a gun go off, then a scream and I found her dead body mutilated in an alley next to a restaurant the next day. It looked like something out of a Saw movie.

And then I didn't know what to do.

So I... started Purging.

It wasn't anything big at first. Theft, armed robberies, starting riots and just being involved in riots in general - nothing big. But as Purge's came and went - as my sanity became a thin stretch of rope ready to snap at any moment - I felt blood dripping down my hands and I felt alive for the first time in forever. Do you know what it like to feel a blade pressed against your skin? Do you know what it feels like to have the blood of an enemy seeping down your arms and then dancing on your tastebuds? Do you know the adrenaline that comes when you're constantly being hunted? Do you know what it feels like to kill? It feels like winning. Like the whole world is you and everyone it bowing to you. That's as well as I can describe it. I didn't want to turn out like this - I wanted to be a mother who could protect her child without killing - but I didn't do either of those things very well now did I?

Regardless I still do it for my daughter. I still fight and rob and murder for my daughter... for all those who have lost loved ones in this fucking stupid celebration. I can hear the stupid broadcast now: _"This is not a test. This is your emergency broadcast system. At the sound of the siren all crime - including murder - will be legal for twelve hours. All emergency services will be suspended for twelve hours. Weapons of class four and lower are permitted. Government officials ranking ten have been granted with immunity to all Purging activates. We thank you for your participation in this annual Purge."_ And then The Purge begins. That stupid siren goes off and I run out into the street like a manic killing everyone I can get my filthy hands on. I do this every time. Without hesitation. What would happen if one day someone targeted me? I would die. That's what. Maybe that's more desirable than being whatever I am becoming, but I want to fight. I want to kill and feel that rush.

I want justice.

It's already 6:50, and The Purge begins in exactly ten minutes.

I can't wait.


	3. There's a Crack in Everything

"You paid a lot for that gun so please do not neglect to use it."

"Yes, dear."

"I do hope you have enough ammunition for your guns. I wouldn't want you running out."

"I won't, dear."

"At the rate you fire, perhaps you will."

"I realize that and that's why I'm taking extra, dear. Now it's quite clear - or perhaps not to you - that I'm not in the mood for your constant chatter. You keep telling me things I already know. In fact, you never stop telling me things I know. Even when I've made it clear that I am one hundred percent confident on the subject."

She waved her hands carelessly, a piece of leftover turkey from the pervious night with family stuck on her fork. She's reading some book that I didn't bother to read the title of, but I know her well enough to know she's not actually reading it. She's not fully indulged in it. She's merely just grazing over it, her entire being funneled into a boring, melodramatic deal of not really caring at all. She was always like this before The Purge. Always. And she always seemed to forget how I was the expert - the one who protected the house - and always, always treated me like a child.

"I'm just trying to be helpful, darling. That's all." She says airily, glancing up from her book for a moment to let her eyes rest on me, taking in every aspect of my being. "Perhaps you ought to find some partners for next year. That stuff looks too heavy for just one person to carry."

"I'll be fine." I say in a clipped tone. "I'm not weak."

"I never said you were."

Click.

Clack.

The bullets clacked into the box as I threw them.

"Perhaps you should put those into some magazines, darling."

And I stop.

I just shut down like all the synapses in my brain had stopped sending electrical signals. Because yeah, okay, she was right. I should be putting them into magazines. It's so true that my brain literally had to process the fact that she - Captain Obvious - had given me some advice that I could actually use. And then I wondered how we had got there - to the silences and tense conversations. We had been good friends before the sex and the wine and the romance. And now... I don't know. I hate the idea of waking up with her next to me. I hate the idea of kissing her and loving her because she never gives anything back. But I also hate the idea of being without her.

"Did I say something wrong, dear?"

I just shake my head and grimace at the floor.

"The Purge begins in ten minutes, dear. You should probably get out there."

She unfolds like a piece of complex origami and comes over to me. She guides me to the door where I'm promptly pushed out into the street and as I turn to look at her, she whispers the words I know mean she still cares.

"Be safe, darling." And then closes the door.

I take a moment to gather up the pieces before setting out into the world beyond.


	4. Thoughts Like That Drive You Insane

I saved the most amazing girl.

I saved the most amazing girl and I can't believe she's Purging too.

I saved the most amazing girl when I saw her get torn away from her significant other on the street and I watched as the men put two bullets into their head. And she screamed as she struggled desperately for freedom. Then I ran to her and put two bullets into each of the men's heads and watched intently as their blood seeped down the pavement. And then she ran up to me and hugged me - hugged me tightly for each member of her group she had lost - and then she kissed my cheek whispering something about how lucky she was to have met me.

"Thank you... Thank you so much... I - I almost died..."

And I nodded in undoubted agreement.

"Let's go. We made enough ruckus to alert the entire city where we are." She said quietly, grabbing onto my hand tightly and dragging me toward a misty alley. "C'mon this way."

And I didn't know why, but I felt like I wanted to know her better.

Then we didn't need to worry about The Purge or anything else because she took me to her apartment where she then promptly barricaded the door and dragged me into her bedroom where she sat me on the floor and brushed matted hair off my forehead. She was quite the women - amazing to say the least. She danced her way through everyday life with an unexamined lightness and the day The Purge comes she just, the way she describes it, goes "absolutely fucking crazy and kills everyone she can." Just like that. Like it was nothing. And I loved it.

It's enough at first that I could ignore the very obvious weird stuff about her. Her need for taxidermy animals is a less than desirable hobby, but I could tell it was part of the package. If I wanted her, I wanted the animals. And it's all very charming how she tells me of past victims of The Purge, but I can't seem to get over the fact that she speaks as though she's barely above the age of ten. Kind of sweet and twee and that odd sort of immaturity so typical of her but the longer I'm with her together the more freely she speaks. She talks about some weird alien friends she had back when the world ended ten years ago, but no one remembers because we're all sort of some weird, complex alternate universe that she can't explain but can at the same time.

And then she kissed me. Tongue working into my mouth like a snake.

Then I didn't know what to do.

After awhile she got bored of my dry lips and then laid down and eventually fell asleep. Then I got up from the ground and scribbled a note of sorry on a notepad covered in animal fur and left the apartment the same way I came in.

As I stepped back out into the fiery street, passing mangled corpses along the way, my mind wandered to the possibility of what she could've been like had The Purge never happened. Had the entire thing not existed, she probably wouldn't have been messed up like she was. I wouldn't have been messed up either. In different circumstances we could've been together. The most amazing girl and me - together forever. Had The Purge not existed, she wouldn't be able to talk about murder like she was discussing the Sunday paper. But I'm glad I left when I did.

I felt light. The lightness having left no impact at all.


End file.
